


Sanctuary

by Epictomato



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Father-Daughter Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Smoke panics a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28477920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epictomato/pseuds/Epictomato
Summary: Smoke has a nightmare, but the people he cares about are there for him.
Relationships: Mark "Mute" Chandar/James "Smoke" Porter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	Sanctuary

It's unbelievably hot as James stands in his university's lab. He looks around, it’s weird, the heat seems to become more and more pressing. James stands there for a moment more before smelling smoke, there's a fire. 

"Dad! Daddy where are you?" There's a small cry from somewhere, James can't tell exactly where from. He spins around to find the source of the voice.

He doesn't know why, but he starts to feel panicked. Something bad is going to happen, something is going to go wrong. He begins to quickly search the lab. The heat is getting worse.

"Help!" James hears the same voice cry out, he turns again to see a small girl standing there. There's no one with her, and she's frightened. 

"What happened?" She asks. "Where is Dad? What's happening?" Her eyes seem to be watery, like she's crying.

James feels confused, and as he tries to think about how to help, the heat becomes unbearable. He looks up from the little girl to find the both of them surrounded by fire. 

The flames are growing higher and higher, engulfing everything.

He has to get them out of here! He reaches to pick up the girl. 

"I'll get us out of here, come on!" He says rushed, he can't let anything happen to her. She doesn't move, she just stares at him, worried.

"I'm scared." She says in a small voice. It breaks James’ heart, she sounds so scared and lost. He tries to comfort her.

"It's okay I'll get us to safety, trust me." James tells her as reassuringly as he could.

She reaches up to him for James to pick her up. He does so quickly, they don’t have much time. 

He looks down at her, "What's your name?" He asks her. She looks at him, "Charlotte, but I like Charlie better." She sniffles. He smiles, of course a kid would be worried about that even in a situation like this. "My name’s James." He tells her.

James rushes both of them out of the lab, the fire grows behind them, almost as if it’s chasing them. The lab soon disappears behind them.

As James is running around the school frantically searching for a way out, the fire seems to have cut off any way out. He has no idea how that could have happened, the fire was behind them, now it's everywhere. 

He runs down the hallway, desperately trying to find a way out. He hears the high-pitched ringing noises coming from the fire alarms, it’s overwhelming.

After weaving his way through the school he finally finds a window not cut off by flames. James moved swiftly to it with Charlie held close to his chest, she had her head buried in his jacket the whole time. 

He tries to open the window, but it's stuck, he can't move it, the heat is too extreme. He'll have to break it open. James looks around for something to break the window with, but finds nothing.

James decides that to get through it he'll crash through the window. Taking a few steps back to get ready to run at the window, he tucks Charlie to one side and shoulders through it.

The glass was weakened due to the fire's heat, so James had no problem breaking through it. He could feel the flames right behind him as he crashed into hot glass. 

He hits the ground with a painful thud, he feels a sharp pain on the back of his head, and falls unconscious. 

When he comes to, he finds that he’s looking at his own unconscious body. His brows furrowed in confusion. Charlie is leaning over him, shaking him, trying to get him to wake up. The fire catches his attention, it's getting closer to where Charlie is now yelling at him to get up.

"Charlie, you need to move!" He shouts at her, but she can't hear him. The fire is getting closer to her.

"Dad! Dad, get up. Please wake up!" Charlie cries at him. "Please don't leave me too." She whispers, gently putting her head on his chest.

James and the fire are in a competition to get to Charlie first. He moves to pick Charlie up and run, but before he can get to her, James is cut off by the fire. 

"Charlie!" He shouts in desperation. He doesn't know what to do, he'd failed her, he made a promise and now he's broken it. James, stunned, falls to his knees and begins to cry. He was supposed to be there for her, to protect her. 

"James." 

James doesn't know who said his name and he doesn't care. He can't stop thinking about how he failed Charlie, nothing matters to him anymore.

"James, come on, wake up." It's that voice again. "James!"

James' eyes snap open, they are greeted with the darkness of Mark's bedroom. He lies perfectly still as his heart races. 

"James?" He hears Mark ask him. He now notices Mark's hand is on his arm. James tries to calm his breathing down, but can't get the vivid images from his nightmare out of his head, he shudders a little as his eyes begin to sting.

"Hey, it's okay, it was a dream. You're okay now." Mark tries to reassure him. 

Rolling over to face Mark, James buries his face into Mark's shirt. He breathes in the scent of him and listens to his steady heartbeat; as Mark wraps his arms around him.

“Sorry for waking you.” James mumbles into his shirt.

"There's no need to be sorry, James. Do you want to talk about it?" Mark asks.

"I wasn't able to save Charlie." James says, slightly moving back.

"But it was a dream." Mark replies.

"I know that, but it's something I worry about. When it comes to anyone I care about, I worry about it, like what if you got hurt on a mission and I couldn't get to you in time. Charlie was right in front of me, Mark, I should have gotten to her." James explains. Mark brings one of his hands up to James' head, and begins to run his fingers through his hair. 

Going quite, James gets lost in his mind. Terrible situations and what ifs get played out, making him tense. 

What if something happened right now? 

No, Charlie was back home safe, right?

Was she though? How did he know, it’s not like he was there. 

James’ breathing picked up.

He should be, he told her he’d be there for her, promised her.

The arms around him tightened around him a bit, pulling him out of his thoughts once again. Something wet rolled down his cheek, when had he started crying? 

“I want to go home.” James blurted out.

He hadn’t meant to say that, but he felt overwhelmed. Though he didn’t feel as panicked anymore, the paranoia was still there. It would put his mind at ease if he was there.

“Okay. Let me drive though, I don’t know if you’re…” Mark trailed off.

“Probably for the best.” James agreed absentmindedly. Mark could tell he wasn’t really focused. 

As he sits in the passenger seat of Mark’s car, curled into himself, and leans his head on the window and stares out of it. He watches the city go by with little interest, but instead as a distraction. 

He’s glad that he’s got Mark. Someone that is there for him when he needs support, they look out for each other.

Arriving at a stop light, the car slows to a stop. As James continues to gaze out the window, Mark steals a glance at his solemn boyfriend. Seeing the troubled look on his face in the reflection of the glass, Mark slowly reaches out, and places his hand on James’ thigh.

James turned to look at Mark, whose attention was back on the road. The hand was a reassuring reminder that Mark was there for him. A small smile graced James’ lips. 

That was one of the many things James loved about Mark, he may not always be the best at saying things outright, but he has his own way of sharing his thoughts. The silent support was enough for James. He knew he wasn’t alone.

Once Mark’s car was close enough that James’ home was in view, James couldn’t help but look for anything suspicious. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he felt a little better. In a way he felt sort of bad for dragging Mark out of bed for his irrationalities.

As soon as the car was in the driveway and turned off, James got out of the car. The chilly night greeted him as he and Mark began to walk up to the door. 

“Should have grabbed my jacket.” James mumbled to himself. 

“We’ll be inside soon enough.” Mark replied with a yawn.

Unlocking the door, James opened it for Mark to walk through. James follows behind and closes the door as Mark turns on the light. They both walk into James’ kitchen, Mark helping himself to a glass of water. 

James makes eye contact with Mark and opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

“What’s up?” Mark asks.

James knew nothing was wrong. The house was perfectly safe, but still it felt as if something might go wrong. He hated feeling this way, it felt so unprovoked. 

“I think I’m going to go check on Charlie. I’ll be right back.” James said.

He didn’t even wait to see or hear Mark’s reply. 

Opening the door gently, so that he didn't wake up his daughter, James peaked his head in. Charlie was silhouetted by the soft glow of the light that came from the hall. A tension seemed to lift from James, she was asleep and safe. He was about to turn and close the door and go back to Mark, when Charlie slightly lifted her head and looked at James.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, it’s me. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.” James said.

“Wait, why are you back so early? Did something happen?” Charlie asked.

Before he could reply, Charlie spoke.

“Did Mark kick you out? I swear if he did, I’ll-” Charlie was fully sitting up now.

“No, nothing like that.” James laughed a little. “He drove me here actually, he’s probably still in the kitchen.”

“Then what happened?”

James could tell that Charlie knew something was up. He didn’t want to lie to her by saying nothing was wrong, but he also didn’t want to burden her with his problems.

“Nothing really, I was just worried, that’s all.”

Turning on a lamp by her bed, Charlie squinted for a moment, getting used to the brightness.

“Everything’s been fine around here.” Charlie replied.

“Well, I just-” James struggled for a moment, but Charlie patiently waited. “I had a nightmare, and you know how I worry. It was about the fire.” 

Charlie hadn’t seen her dad this upset about anything like this for a while, let alone the fire. It never really came up. It was in the past, so there was no reason to bring it up. If it did come up, he didn’t react like this. There must be something else. 

“It didn’t end well,” James continued. “I-I messed up.”

“It’s okay, dad.” Charlie told him as she got up. She moved to give him a hug, which he reciprocated. “I know it’s hard for you to share things sometimes, but do you feel better now?”

James gave a little affirmative hum. “Well, I’ll let you get back to sleep.” James pulled away.

“Goodnight.” She paused for a moment. “You know I’m here for you right? It doesn’t bother me. We’ve always been there for eachother, so you know you can talk to me.” 

“Yeah, I know sweetheart. Love you.” 

“Love you too.” She replied. “Say hi to Mark for me.”

James closed the door, and headed back to Mark, who he found sitting on his couch with his eyes closed. Mark must have heard James approaching since his eyes opened to look up at him. 

“Everything alright?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, Charlie says hi. Also she thought you kicked me out and was about to get up and kick your ass.”

“Sounds about right.” Mark chuckled.

“Well then, I’m going to go to bed. Thanks again for driving me home.”

Mark gave a little hum as he got up to follow James back to his room. 

They lay together in bed facing one another. James rested his head against Mark’s chest once more. Mark gathered James into his arms as James tangled their legs together. This time the sound of Mark’s heart lulled him into a calm and peaceful sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so very much for reading this! I finally finished my fic for my favorite ship! It took me almost three months to finish, I think I had five days before it became that. I really do wonder how many others sit there and wonder how to write parents communicating with their children. Once again, thank you for reading!


End file.
